One of the prime motivators for me to actually consider a Blog was recognizing that I had some valuable insight to share from my years of experience on location. In my world, we are “on location”, not “on set” as in the film world. From this point on when I say “on location” know that I mean “in the field, pretty much on your own away from all your lifelines and your proverbial (and literal) bag of tricks back at the office”. I run an exceptionally tight crew: small in number, high in cross training. Sometimes I’m the only one there. There isn’t a lot of “back up” if things go wrong so proper planning is key to a successful event.

In this series, I want to share some experiences and wisdom gained from a life on the road and in the trenches… the seldom glamourous, sometimes gory details of what it takes to make it through a live event with A/V support.

To be clear: I’m a video guy first and foremost. I’m also a webcaster. But I’ve always taken a holistic approach to event planning from the A/V perspective: I understand my needs both technically and logistically. It is important to me that I know how you envision the event going down. I liaise with the house/facility folks to make sure we are all on the same page. I speak the same language as the Front of House (FoH) audio tech, the stage manager, the lighting crew, the A/V riggers, the staging company…

On location in Saskatoon at an annual convention with 1000 delegates

The series will include such mind-numbingly fascinating topics as:

Shaun’s First Rule of Successful Event Planning

Involve your technicians early. I can plan around almost any client request, as long as I know it is coming. You know that conversation you had in the hallway on the way into the room with the hotel banquet manager that I wasn’t privy to? You folks may have agreed to something that involves my crew to make it happen “on the day”. Did anyone think to tell us about it?

I will try to make this a regular feature with both some solid “take aways” based on actual experiences, some fun anecdotes and some practical advice from your often overlooked event day partners: the A/V department.

It will be a FRANK discussion, sometimes possibly uncomfortably so as we openly discuss what a successful event looks like from where I sit behind a stack of black boxes with blinking lights and a whole bunch of switches and dials.

One of the things that prompted me to start writing is that I’ve recently had some very bad experiences on web forums that I frequent. In one case, I have been a contributor for over ten years.

Over the past 14 years, I have been active on five different forums. Several years ago, I asked to be deactivated from one, a company forum linked to a specific video content provider, after thousands of posts. I felt like part of a community there. It was a virtual coffee shop, complete with a Monday night open chat. Coming from a mid-sized Prairie town where there weren’t all THAT many practitioners of video production, it gave me unprecedented exposure to new people, new ideas and new products that made my end deliverables better.

Well… one day someone decided to make a point that I fundamentally disagreed with. And in my humble opinion it was in contravention of forum policy. I tried to deal with the forum post by first inquiring of the contributor to see if they indeed meant what it appeared they meant. They did. I brought the post to the attention of the moderators, as I had done many times before as I legitimately felt it alienated a significant population of the forum. I was informed that the moderators saw no issue with the post. I contacted the fellow who owns the company in question and who moderates the forum, who agreed with his moderators and said frankly “If you don’t like it, leave”.

So I did. I also stopped purchasing their products. I vote with my hard-earned money.

“This is important! Someone is WRONG on the Internet!”

Since then, I have been contacted dozens of times by contributors to that forum, pointing out they missed my contributions to the community. I appreciate the sentiment and have connected with a few of them via Facebook or other forums but it just isn’t the same. That time we “spent” together in a virtual world, sharing experiences and insights seemed strangely magical to me then.

I recently signed up for another manufacturer forum to again share my knowledge and learn from others. The manufacturer in question is somewhat groundbreaking but has a tendency to release products that aren’t QUITE ready for prime time, at least in certain market segments. It seemed like a natural place to “hang my hat” as I sorted through some of the issues I was having and also help others in the same boat.

This past week a discussion broke out around something I do know a great deal about and I chimed in when I saw what I thought to be some misinformation gathering speed. After some initial civilized back-and-forth, I was called a member of the “old guard” and told that my OPINIONS weren’t relevant in this “exciting new fast-paced world”.

“You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…”

Then the lemmings piled on. If you have never been an active part of a web forum, you are missing out on some of the most gratifying and most frustrating human interaction imaginable. Knowledge becomes lost and OPINION rules supreme. No matter how ill-informed an idea is, if it appears on a web forum someone will take up the banner and it will become a “web truth”. I also noticed that other members of the “Old Guard” who were active on the forum in question when I started only a few short months ago appeared to be AWOL as well. The lifeboats had sailed away and someone forgot to tell me.

I respectfully requested to have my forum account deactivated. The moderator expressed placating disappointment that I was leaving and that was that. It felt good.

Then most recently, I had another run-in with a contributor on a different forum. We had differing opinions on the right course of action for someone that had a question in an area in which I have some proficiency. Granted, the person with whom I had the disagreement is a recognized expert in his field but his dismissal of my solution to the problem was rude, flawed and in contravention of forum policy.

I suggested an alternative, and a value based one at that, to a problem that I saw. In a world where cameras are often a five-figure investment and audio gear is normally in the hundreds or thousands of dollars, a sub-$100 potential solution to the problem also added future flexibility. Another “tool in the shed”, if you will.

This clash came to a head this morning and I felt that my continued involvement wasn’t getting anyone anywhere. So I asked the moderator, whom I have met on a number of occasions, to respectfully deactivate my forum account as my interest in continuing to contribute to a community with a bully active wasn’t going to be in sync with what I’m trying to accomplish, personally or professionally.

“You like me, you really like me!”

I received an incredibly warm response to my request to deactivate my account that reinforced my HOPED belief that I was a valued contributor and the matter would be looked into. The thread in question was edited heavily to remove the in-fighting and my suggestions remained. A request to reconsider my departure was also tabled in private.

I’m still considering the request to reconsider.

See… for me this is more than a case of “I’m taking my ball and going home”… it is a case of an increasing phenomenon whereby folks who now have a voice online suddenly think that the voice gives them something VALUABLE to say.

In this age of Internet Celebrity, it doesn’t matter WHAT you know any more (some exceptions may apply…) but how glamourously you can express your opinions, which then become mantra and dogma.

This Blog is my response to that experience.

As Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben once said: “With great power comes great responsibility”.

I hope to share my perspective: there are some things I know to be true, there are some practices I have found to be superior to others in practice and there are some opinions I hold that may or may not apply to your circumstance or your world view.

I’ve been fortunate enough to earn a living for the last 14 years playing with technology and talking to people with a whole HEAP of traveling thrown in for good measure.

But as I look back at what I’ve achieved over the past almost-decade-and-a-half, I realize that I haven’t done it alone.

My mentor Terry Kennedy passed away in 1999 leaving me to run his video production business to finish off an important project for the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba for a grassroots initiative called Workers of Tomorrow (later SAFE Workers of Tomorrow) taking a message of working safely to high school students. Terry introduced me to the world of live event, conference and convention coverage, which is my absolute passion these days and will likely comprise much of my ramblings on here.

On one such convention back in 1999, I met my Brother-From-Another-Mother, Earl Greyeyes. Earl is ten years my senior but I think we both keep each other young. He too is an ex-CBC television “shooter” (industry lingo for “camera operator”). We hit it off immediately. He is the one who first called me a Road Dog: I used to pack up an entire “television studio in a box” and travel from Winnipeg, Manitoba to either Saskatoon or Regina in Saskatchewan to do an annual convention once a year. This was virtually unheard of back then.

In 1999, this was state-of-the-art… as was the cell phone.

My mentor Terry made an early investment in technology that was TREMENDOUSLY expensive back then that allowed for live switching of multiple cameras, tethered by long, heavy, expensive multi-strand cables to a common engineering and switching post. By today’s standards, the setup would be considered archaic, ridiculously complicated and of questionable visual quality but BACK THEN, we were one of only a small handful of independent video production houses with this capability. And it was EXCITING!

When Terry passed away, Earl and I banded together to make sure Terry’s legacy would live on. Terry had one mantra: NOTHING BUT THE BEST FOR THE WORKERS. To today, I hold that truth to be self-evident: treat your people well and they will reward you tenfold.

As years passed, I made systemic and coordinated upgrades to the system, eventually moving beyond Terry’s initial setup. The system I use today is small, light, powerful and incredibly fast to set up. But it is still an homage to the big, heavy, kludgy system that Terry so proudly invested in all those years ago.

Earl and I have gotten older and possibly wiser. We have brought others into the fold and share Terry’s teachings of what a Road Crew is supposed to be… a brotherhood. And we have lost some of our brothers, most notably Aron, whom we called Smokey, who worked with us on a number of conventions and was a cornerstone of the ORIGINAL “Prairie Dogs”, serving Manitoba and Saskatchewan…

Me in Tamil Nadu, India back in 2005.The kids had never seen a “white man” before, according to our translator.

Hi folks…

I’ve spent the last 14 or so years helping other folks with their “voice”…

I’m a working videographer who has specialized in working with normal folks to help get their message out, to help share their story.

In this day and age of WordPress, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media this may seem redundant or academic. When I started, video was still a complicated and usually expensive medium and web streaming was still a long way off… at least anything with decent enough viewing experience to warrant watching… But along the way I learned what makes a good story.

I hope to share some of what I’ve learned with anyone willing to take the time out to “listen”.